King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa - Paperback

by Adam Hochschild (Author)

"An enthralling story . . . A work of history that reads like a novel." -- Christian Science Monitor
"As Hochschild's brilliant book demonstrates, the great Congo scandal prefigured our own times . . . This book must be read and reread." -- Los Angeles Times Book Review

In the late nineteenth century, as the European powers were carving up Africa, King Leopold II of Belgium carried out a brutal plundering of the territory surrounding the Congo River. Ultimately slashing the area's population by ten million, he still managed to shrewdly cultivate his reputation as a great humanitarian. A tale far richer than any novelist could invent, King Leopold's Ghost is the horrifying account of a megalomaniac of monstrous proportions. It is also the deeply moving portrait of those who defied Leopold: African rebel leaders who fought against hopeless odds and a brave handful of missionaries, travelers, and young idealists who went to Africa for work or adventure but unexpectedly found themselves witnesses to a holocaust and participants in the twentieth century's first great human rights movement.

A National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist
A New York Times Notable Book

Author Biography

ADAM HOCHSCHILD is the best-selling author of seven books. King Leopold's Ghost was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, as was his recent To End All Wars. Bury the Chains was a finalist for the National Book Award and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the PEN Center USA Literary Award.